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THE OLD GARDEN.
The avenue seemed to Donal about to stop dead against a high wall,
but ere they quite reached the end, they turned at right angles,
skirted the wall for some distance, then turned again with it. It
was a somewhat dreary wall--of gray stone, with mortar as gray--not
like the rich-coloured walls of old red brick one meets in England.
But its roof-like coping was crowned with tufts of wall-plants, and
a few lichens did something to relieve the grayness. It guided them
to a farm-yard. Mr. Graeme left his horse at the stable, and led
the way to the house.
They entered it by a back door whose porch was covered with ivy, and
going through several low passages, came to the other side of the
house. There Mr. Graeme showed Donal into a large, low-ceiled,
old-fashioned drawing-room, smelling of ancient rose-leaves, their
odour of sad hearts rather than of withered flowers--and leaving him
went to find his sister.
Glancing about him Donal saw a window open to the ground, and went
to it. Beyond lay a more fairy-like garden than he had ever dreamed
of. But he had read of, though never looked on such, and seemed to
know it from times of old. It was laid out in straight lines, with
soft walks of old turf, and in it grew all kinds of straight
aspiring things: their ambition seemed--to get up, not to spread
abroad. He stepped out of the window, drawn as by the enchantment
of one of childhood's dreams, and went wandering down a broad walk,
his foot sinking deep in the velvety grass, and the loveliness of
the dream did not fade. Hollyhocks, gloriously impatient, whose
flowers could not wait to reach the top ere they burst into the
flame of life, making splendid blots of colour along their ascending
stalks, received him like stately dames of faerie, and enticed him,
gently eager for more, down the long walks between rows of
them--deep red and creamy white, primrose and yellow: sure they were
leading him to some wonderful spot, some nest of lovely dreams and
more lovely visions! The walk did lead to a bower of roses--a bed
surrounded with a trellis, on which they climbed and made a huge
bonfire--altar of incense rather, glowing with red and white flame.
It seemed more glorious than his brain could receive. Seeing was
hardly believing, but believing was more than seeing: though nothing
is too good to be true, many things are too good to be grasped.
"Poor misbelieving birds of God," he said to himself, "we hover
about a whole wood of the trees of life, venturing only here and
there a peck, as if their fruit might be poison, and the design of
our creation was our ruin! we shake our wise, owl-feathered heads,
and declare they cannot be the trees of life: that were too good to
be true! Ten times more consistent are they who deny there is a God
at all, than they who believe in a middling kind of God--except
indeed that they place in him a fitting faith!"
The thoughts rose gently in his full heart, as the flowers, one
after the other, stole in at his eyes, looking up from the dark
earth like the spirits of its hidden jewels, which themselves could
not reach the sun, exhaled in longing. Over grass which fondled his
feet like the lap of an old nurse, he walked slowly round the bed of
the roses, turning again towards the house. But there, half-way
between him and it, was the lady of the garden descending to meet
him!--not ancient like the garden, but young like its flowers,
light-footed, and full of life.
Prepared by her brother to be friendly, she met him with a pleasant
smile, and he saw that the light which shone in her dark eyes had in
it rays of laughter. She had a dark, yet clear complexion, a good
forehead, a nose after no recognized generation of noses, yet an
attractive one, a mouth larger than to human judgment might have
seemed necessary, yet a right pleasing mouth, with two rows of
lovely teeth. All this Donal saw approach without dismay. He was
no more shy with women than with men; while none the less his
feeling towards them partook largely of the reverence of the ideal
knight errant. He would not indeed have been shy in the presence of
an angel of God; for his only courage came of truth, and clothed in
the dignity of his reverence, he could look in the face of the
lovely without perturbation. He would not have sought to hide from
him whose voice was in the garden, but would have made haste to cast
himself at his feet.
Bonnet in hand he advanced to meet Kate Graeme. She held out to him
a well-shaped, good-sized hand, not ignorant of work--capable indeed
of milking a cow to the cow's satisfaction. Then he saw that her
chin was strong, and her dark hair not too tidy; that she was rather
tall, and slenderly conceived though plumply carried out. Her light
approach pleased him. He liked the way her foot pressed the grass.
If Donal loved anything in the green world, it was neither roses
nor hollyhocks, nor even sweet peas, but the grass that is trodden
under foot, that springs in all waste places, and has so often to be
glad of the dews of heaven to heal the hot cut of the scythe. He
had long abjured the notion of anything in the vegetable kingdom
being without some sense of life, without pleasure and pain also, in
mild form and degree.
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